icassop writes: Libre Shuppan has started to send out Cease & Desist letters to individual scanlation groups which include Liquid Passion/Biblo Eros, Bliss, and Attractive Fascinante.

A just ruler amongst tyrants

Even though i don't read yaoi and shounen-ai it still suck to see the way it's going we will probably hear more compagny doing the same soon.

As far as I can tell, those three groups are very good at not scanlating licensed manga and dropping manga once they have been licensed. Yeah, this is only going to hurt their sales.

I'm never going to buy any manga without having read it first, so Libre Shuppan has basically ensured this yaoi fan will not being giving them any business.

rename and start lurking in the dark water of IRC...

its cold down here fam ~

Pretty much.

This does nothing but hurt them from reaching new consumers. Especially considering how many people hate yaoi (Myself included).

I don't think it's necessarily about english licensed manga. Aarinfantasy were also asked by Libre to stop allowing raw scans as well as scanlations to be shared on their forum.

Well, Aarinfantasy getting a C&D is understandable since they shared the raws which could potentially take away sales of the original. These three groups only release English scanlations, which is free publicity for Libre Shuppan and for an entirely different audience. There are going to be a lot more foreigners buying these manga due to reading the scanlation than Japanese national foregoing on buying the manga because they want to struggle through some free English version of it just to save $5. Since these groups are also good at removing English licensed manga, they would not have hurt the licensing potential of popular manga either. All in all, a bad marketing move which will lead to fewer raw manga sold by this publisher.

Oh well, I just checked out the books by this publisher in the meantime and about 90% of them were awful stories to begin with.

can IRC not be tracked? Or it can but just not easy?

If anything, it's sites like these that make it easier for publishers to track down scanlators. You're basically giving everything away except the scanners weight! But I'm being slightly critical. Can't say that this wasn't going to happen one day; though it's sad that it happened during such a rough patch in our worlds economic history. But like MewMan said, lets all head back to IRC.

If scanlators aren't easy to track down, we can't read their stuff either. Plus it's the scanlator's choice to put their releases up here. I imagine most of them enjoy having as many people as possible reading what they release.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that a list of everything they're working on is not the best way to skirt the law. I remember the days of IRC and when you had to actually scour the net to find scans. They wanted to be hidden. Now everyone has gotten so bold and it's almost like they're parading around the fact that they are doing something illegal. I'm not putting down scanslators. Fuck no. They've introduced me to some stuff that I've gone off and gotten legal copies of. But, we shouldn't be acting like it's okay. I say back into hiding; time for the crazy algorithm searches via google.

You're absolutely right. It is too easy for any publisher to watch the new releases page for their titles and fire off C&D emails to the groups - as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

Someone has told Libre Shuppan about MU. They are probably watching the new releases page. If they figure out how to search the database for their titles, then we are all stuffed.

Once your details are up on MU, it's really hard to remove. I asked the mods twice to remove something...and nothing happened. It's very frustrating for those of us who are trying to keep a low profile.

Thank you for understanding at what I was trying to get at.

I figured that's what happened. It just takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. But it's not like what we were doing is good either. Though how the publishers are reacting to it shows a lack of maturity. There have been some very good suggestions from various people and scanners in various communities. I'm sure they've been suggested to the publishers, but publishers don't want to play nice.

ah another less yaoi in the world. but i think its pointless, somehow some other group will be formed, then they will scanlate those title in places where c&d aint gonna reach them. In my country no one even care if some foreign publishers give you a c&d, beside they hate lawmakers more than they hate their mother.